Is Online Gambling Legal in Namibia?
Not without Namibian authorisation, and none exists for online casino games. The Gaming and Entertainment Control Act 2018, gazetted on 13 December 2018 and in operation since 1 December 2021, defines an online game as a gambling game played through communication technology. Section 73 states that a person may not engage in or make available an online game except as authorised under the Act, and leaves it to the Minister to prescribe which online games need a licence. No online game licence has been issued.
The Act goes further for gambling in general: section 70 makes it an offence to engage in, conduct or make available a gambling activity that is not licensed under the Act. Its wording covers the person who takes part as well as the operator. International casinos still take sign-ups from Namibia, and every casino on this page is licensed outside the country, but a foreign licence does not change what Namibian law says.
What Namibia Licenses
The 2018 Act replaced the Casinos and Gambling Houses Act of 1994 and brought casinos, gambling houses and limited payout machines under the Gambling Board of Namibia, while lotteries run under the Lotteries Act 2017. Licensed gambling houses pay a 10% levy on their profits, and in May 2025 the High Court ordered them to pay it, rejecting the argument that the levy should wait until illegal operations were closed.
Namibia’s 2026 Review of the Gambling Rules
In October 2026 the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism held public consultations in six towns, from Keetmanshoop on 5 October to Windhoek, on amendments to the Gambling and Gambling Activities Regulations and to the Lotteries Act. The proposals include registering employees who handle money as gambling employees and two fees to fund a Central Electronic Monitoring System: 5% of operators’ net monthly income for monitoring and 1% of gross income for maintenance.
Officials said the government wants to regulate online gambling and keep minors away from it, but the amendments were still at consultation stage and had not gone to Parliament. Until the Minister prescribes online game licences, section 73 stands as written.
What an Offshore Licence Means From Namibia
An online casino that accepts Namibian players answers to the authority on its card, and the Gambling Board has no say over it. What a foreign licence does and does not protect varies with the regulator that issued it, and every authority behind the casinos we list, with its casinos, is on our page of casinos grouped by licence.
Responsible Gambling in Namibia
Namibia’s version of self-exclusion is the register of restricted persons in section 77 of the Act. Anyone can apply to the Gambling Board to be entered on it and barred from gambling, and can later apply to be removed. The register covers venues the Board licenses, so online the protection comes from settings on your own casino account: deposit limits, cooling-off breaks and account closure. The Act also bars anyone under 18 from gambling, and registers like Namibia’s in other countries show how far such a scheme can reach once online play is licensed.
What Namibian Players Should Weigh Up
For anyone in Namibia, the law in the legal section above comes first. After that, the practical points are the regulator on the card, the currency, since the Namibian dollar is usually converted, and how quickly a casino pays out. Namibia’s neighbour regulates differently again, and our page on online casinos in South Africa covers the rules across the border.
